I just posted a private entry in my livejournal. It's sad that I went a full year without updating this journal. I do have some off-LJ text files and some entries at our family blog over the past year, so my journal's not totally pathetic. But I can do better.

I've registered for fall classes, but I'm second-guessing.  There are a few more "Recommended" courses left that I haven't taken yet, and time being finite, I have to choose between some "required" vs. "desired" courses.  I want to learn more about the First Amendment, intellectual property, and computer-based practice systems, but I can only do so at the expense of classes like Secured Transactions, Conflict of Laws, Wills, and Debtors and Creditors.  How do I decide?

I was a bit frustrated last week because I applied for an internship and a translation job and was turned down for both of them.  I decided not to let them get to me, but the effect it has on the enthusiasm of my career planning is subtle and insidious.  So is the cheering effect of being offered a translation job this morning by a former mentor.  I've gone from somewhat bored to extremely busy in the space of checking one email.  The trick now will be keeping Anna happy while she's awake and getting as much work done as possible while she's asleep.

So, once again, I get a taste of what Kristine's life will be like when I'm back in law school in two months ...

“Yay! No more teeth marks on the Play-Doh cups!”

     - A mother cheering for her toddler (overheard at Steven and Bethany's 60^th Birthday Party)

 Anna's stomach has been a little off the last two days.  Yesterday she was eating a lot, but she was squirmy and didn't poop much all day.  Today at family prayer, Kristine prayed, "...and bless Anna that she'll make poopies... ."  It's the first time I've ever heard "poopies" in a prayer, but when you're trying to include a thee-month-old baby in a prayer, it's more than acceptable.

Kristine's faith was amply rewarded throughout the afternoon—almost always when Anna was sitting on her lap.  Before she left to take a much-needed shower just now, I asked her when would be the next time she prayed for poopies.

"The next time Anna's having trouble making them," she replied.  "They don't bother me as long as they mean she's healthy."

Answers like that let one know that one has chosen the right mother for one's children.

 It's hard to imitate a newborn baby's faces when you have tall teeth.

I don't think most people believe me when I say that Anna said her first phrase—“love you”—to me about ten days ago (at the mature age of 8½ weeks), or that she said “hello” a day or two before that. What I think is really telling is that she said both of them while I was changing her diaper.

I think parents—fathers especially—should learn to take advantage of diaper-changing “opportunities.” Like feeding and rocking a baby to sleep, changing diapers is an obligation that can't be avoided. There are two approaches a parent can take (besides shirking the job by foisting it off as much as possible on the other parent). One is to minimize the time spent on the chore; the other is to maximize the enjoyment of it. I was preparing very well to pursue the first strategy. There's a station set up in our house called the “Poopie Lab”—dedicated to finding the design and process that will help Daddy do his diaper-changing job as quickly and conveniently as possible. Kristine was surprised and impressed at how easy it made the work for both of us and how comfortable it made the experience for the baby. (For one thing, I've noticed that she is much calmer if she always gets changed in the exact same place. Public restrooms are not appreciated.) 

Kristine and I went to the Moore's house today and spent the day playing with the kids. We took our homework with us, but mostly I spent the day trying to either catch Thalia as she jumped off of things into my arms or persuade her that some other game would be more fun, and becoming acquainted with Rigel's vocabulary. That should take care of my exercise requirements for a few days. We also interviewed Beth for some wisdom regarding raising, feeding and protecting the house against children. Beth was very glad to have the company for a day. Orion probably would have been glad, except that he got home very late from work and spent the rest of the time that we were there trying to read Rigel to sleep. (He was not successful.) Kristine and I spent a lot of the ride home talking about how we wanted to have our house set up for dealing with the various craziness the children produce.

And that was our holiday. Tomorrow it's back to school and work and deadlines and blah blah blah.

[written using my new Dragon software, which knows how to spell "Rigel"] 

Fabrizio and I went home teaching at the Herzogs’ tonight. The First Presidency lesson was on senior missionary couples. I volunteered to teach before I knew what it was about, so I was all this evening trying to think of something to say about senior missionaries. Anyway, the Herzogs got to talking about all the different kinds of preparation the missionaries need: spiritual and financial preparation as well as physical preparation—making sure you’re healthy enough, worrying about your health now so that when you’re 70-something you will be healthy enough to be a missionary. You may not have to walk around all over town quite as much as the kids do, but it would be nice to be able to lift yourself out of the chair.

From there we started talking a little bit about spiritual preparation: how we don’t think the senior missionary couples fight as much as the younger kids, but with new challenges sometimes people in relationships learn new things about themselves. Somebody mentioned couples getting assigned to areas where one person in the marriage speaks the local language and the other one doesn't, and the kind of tension that could come up there, especially if one person starts trying to teach the language to the other one and the teaching and learning efforts don’t go as smoothly as predicted. Fabrizio actually works in the senior MTC, so I asked him before we go to teach the Christensons next week to go and ask ask around at work and see what kind of advice the missionaries, or maybe this senior MTC president has for younger couples on how to prepare and avoid some of the difficulties, or achieve some of the success, that the senior missionaries have experienced.

In other news, I meant to record some more singing for my mother's late Christmas present today, but my cold  has still not quite deserted me.  It's actually left my voice sounding a little bit like William Shatner, which I think she would enjoy, but I flatter myself that she prefers my singing to his.

[voice-written with my new Dragon software, which knows how to spell "William Shatner"]

For a time on the mission, the other missionaries in the apartment were always playing music while my companion, Elder Donaldson, and I were praying. Because I always find music difficult to ignore, I began unconsciously humming along with the music while my companion prayed! Donaldson didn’t appreciate my ‘tuning out’ his prayers and frequently had to stop and request that I allow him to pray ‘a cappella.’

I was trying to quit interrupting, but since the humming was unconscious, I didn’t believe Donaldson’s assertion that I wasn’t paying attention during our prayers. He brought me back to reality one morning as he finished a prayer during which I’d tried especially hard to pay attention. I wanted to be able to repeat at least a part of his prayer back to him when he was done, and I thought I’d done rather well.

Donaldson disagreed. “You weren’t listening!” he accused me yet again as soon as he was done.

“Yes, I was!” I protested. “I heard every word you said!”

“No, you didn’t!” he shot back.

“How do you know?” I demanded.

“Because I prayed for you to stop humming and you didn’t stop!”

To this day, I don’t know what I thought I was going to ‘repeat back’ to my companion from his prayer.

A good companion can help us with problems we may not even know we have.